


Steps.

by Follevolo



Series: Gallavich Week 2.0 [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Day One, Fluff, I Love You, M/M, gallavich week 2.0, petty talk, together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:46:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1790980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Follevolo/pseuds/Follevolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are together and they know it. Even if the other people might think they need to talk about it to actually be it. They don't. But they do it anyway, because let's face it, it's what fanfictions are all about, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steps.

**Author's Note:**

> So this started as a promt: "I would like Mickey to become kinda friend with another gay man but really effeminate and stereotyped. Like they make fun of each other because this man is not impressed by Mick behaviour and they truly like each other but in a weird and funny friendship. Maybe, they would meet at the club where Ian works and would hang out together or something."   
> So I created Pat - but I forgot to put this on AO3.   
> Then Gallavich week started and I decided to write a second part to it, to adjust it to the theme. And here we go! Hope you like it!

Mickey watched Ian from the bar, half amused, half pissed, as always. He was used by now to all that dickheads staring at  _his_  Ian dancing, still he just couldn’t stand it any better than the first time he saw him.

It was a nice show, definitely. But, not that he would ever admit that, he wished he could be Ian’s only client, his one and only viewer. He sighed in his drink, hypnotized by Ian’s muscles tensing and relaxing, fluidly moving in waves, in rhythm with the music. Fuck, where did he even learned to move that way.

«You’re drooling in your own drink, sunshine» Mickey turned around and raised an eyebrow in disbelief to the barman grinning at him from behind the counter.

«Fuck off!» Mickey snapped, flipping him off.

They guy laughed, a true, genuine, fairy laugh. Mickey rolled his eyes. Great. That was how down he got: a fucking faggot with pink hair and fucking rings in his fingers was laughing at him.  The guy was ridiculous yet handsome in an unconventional kind of way; with short shining big bubble air, apple green butterfly on a turquoise shirt, it looked like Blaine Anderson just got out from Capitol City. But he had a nice laugh, and something about his happy, shameless face, that Mickey found kind of funny, and reliable, and warm.

At least, he didn’t feel anymore like the most ridiculous person in that shithole.

«You know, they way you’re watching at him is so intense you risk to knock him up just with your imagination»

Mickey snorted «You know, I’m not a scientist but I think that’s fucking impossible for a hundred of different reasons. First of all, dudes can’t get pregnant»

«God knows if we try, though! I mean, that’s a fucking injustice, right? Woman get to carry the miracle of birth in their stomach while I only have Mexican food and alcohol»

Mickey chuckled lightly, and the mysterious pink barman handed him another shot.

«That’s on me, dreamy eyes . I’m Pat, by the way»

«I’m Mickey. And if you call me again like that I’ll fucking rip your tongue out of your head. By the way.»

Mickey didn’t know if it was for the fact that he was in a fucking gay club, or because he had been staring at Ian for half an hour without even attempting to look uninterested, or if since he came out there was something different, weaker about him. But he just couldn’t manage to scare Pat off, even if he tried. At every threat or angry answer, he just laughed and shrugged, like he just knew better.

Maybe when you work in a place like that, you learn to read inside people with a look.

«C’mon, Mickey. Tell me your sad story. He left you? He’s your best friend? Oh, God, you’re a creepy stalker and he doesn’t even know you? You banged in a bathroom when he was stoned and now he doesn’t remember your face but you fell in love and you can’t help hoping you’ll have another chance and this time, this time…» He made some kind of stupid twirl and clasped his hands together on his chest, blinking slowly and theatrically «You’ll make him remember it forever?»

Mickey couldn’t believe he was even talking to someone so gay, but he found himself oddly comfortable. Pat was so willingly self-humiliating to make him laugh, that it was impossible not to give him something in return.

«Nah, pussy» he said with a chuckle «Trust me, he remembers me. He knows me. We… Well. You know. We’re together»

Pat raised his eyebrows and looked at him with a surprised smile.

«No less! Well, lucky guy, uh?»

«Yeah, I know he’s fucking out of my league without you making me notice it, thank you very much»

«I meant him, actually» Pat said with a wink. Mickey rolled his eyes.

«Fuck off, man, I’m taken.»

«I was joking, princess. You are really not my type.» He shivered lightly, like the thought of them together was absolutely out of God’s mind. No way. «So, since when are you an happy fluffy couple?»

«We are not an happy fluffy couple» Mickey grunted, taking a sip of his drink to hide is grin «I don’t fucking know. Three years. Maybe more.»

«And you come here to check on him. How sweet.»

«If you keep acting like I’m Neal fucking Harris I swear I’ll cut your balls, man. Though I’m not sure you still have them» Pat elegantly ignored him, and looked at him with that special stare only real badass barmen have, like they know things about you you don’t know about yourself.

«You love him, don’t you. Fuck. You are totally in love with him! Not like an “I want what I can’t have” love, or “He’s hot so I’ll stick around until he doesn’t get tired of me”. You love him, like, I don’t know, like you come here every night to keep an eye on him even though you hate this place, and you take him home if he gets wasted and just sleep next to him without having sex and you let him put his head on your chest and you secretly smile because fuck, he is so cute when he sleeps!»

They stare at each other for a moment, Mickey’s eyes widen in painful mortification, Pat’s shining in pure bliss.

«Shut up» Mickey threatens, not even trying to deny the shocking, paralyzing truth of Pat’s words.

Pat’s clearly preparing to answer with some witty comment, but they are interrupted by a third voice none of them was expecting.

«Whoa! Pat, would you be a hero and hand me a bottle of water? I’m dying.» Ian sat next to Mickey, his elbows on the counter and his head smoothly resting in his hands. He smiled to Mickey happily, like he had just seen the sun dawning.

«Hey. Shift’s over. Wanna go home?» he said, getting closer to him and pecking him lightly on the cheek. Mickey heard Pat giggle behind the counter; he didn’t even turned around to look at him, too lost in Ian’s eyes to care.

«Shut up, Pat» he mumbled, before kissing Ian hard on the lips.

He pretended not to hear him whistle the wedding anthem in their ears. 

 

*

 

 

«Have you ever told him?» Mickey and Pat were both looking at Ian dancing, surrounded by the usual crowd of grey fairies – Mickey was almost getting used to it. _A_ _lmost._  He had to admit that since he met Pat his time at the club was quite bearable. Mickey would just sit there, his chair rounded to face Ian, his elbows on the counter, and Pat would joke with him and light up his mood and offer him a drink when he was about to lose his shit over some creepy weirdo who got too close to  _his_  ginger. They would talk about Ian a lot more than Mickey would like to admit – he was usually too drunk to care anyway. Pat would smile and tell him about his exes and his adventures and one night stands and Mickey sometimes would feel like all this business of being gay, well, it wasn’t so  _shameful_ , after all.

«Told him what?» He asked absently, not taking his eyes off Ian’s figure for a second.

He should have, though. Because if he had paid a little more attention, he would have noticed that Pat had that devilish grin on his face, with his big eyes wide open and his hands shaking in the air theatrically.

«That you adore the ground he walks on. That you are fond of his eyes and his freckles. That you are jealous of the air he breathes. That his abs send you shivers down your spine every time you look at them. That he is a dream coming true and you just can’t believe you were so lucky that it seems almost unfair, but you can’t force yourself to care. That you desperately, hopelessly, totally love him»

It took Mickey a few minutes to just comprehend the disgusting bunch of bullshit Pat managed to put together in the same speech. But there was a problem there: as long as he let that words hit him and pass through him, the images they formed in his head started to have a strange effect on him. Ian’s eyes, uh. His freckles. Smoke escaping from his mouth. His abs. Ian waking up in the morning and smiling at him like he wouldn’t ever want a thing in the world but that moment on loop for the rest of their lives.

He felt his heart ache, like it was suddenly so heavy in his chest, and it was falling down around his stomach, and he felt dizzy, and nauseated, and stupid, oh so fucking stupid.

He turned around slowly to face Pat, trying to hide the mess that was inexplicably happening with his body.

«Do I look like Hugh fucking Grant? This ain’t a Nora Ephron movie, man. Fuck off!»

Pat shuddered, like he hadn’t said anything special.

«You know, Mick. You’ve been sort of on-and-off together for three years, but your relationship was never so stable and definitive like it is now. People get to a certain point, after a while. There are some steps you need to achieve, you know? Until you don’t, the uncertainty of it all keep you silently apart and you’ll never know where you really are with each other and will end up royally screwing it up somehow! And when you’ll come here, alone and miserable, drinking yourself silly and asking to God why he left you for that prick, I’ll tell you why: because YOU. DIDN’T. RESPECTED. THE. STEPS!»

Mickey took a long sip of Jack and thought about it for a while. Like he was seriously considering that shit.

«We banged before kissing. Steps were fucked up from the start, man. Too late to fix it now. Reckon we are screwed anyway at this point. We are working it out just fine.»

Pat rolled his eyes.

«As you wish. Just hold on to your fucking pride. Tell me how is it going to work out for ya when he’ll tell you some twink fell in love with him and isn’t afraid to tell him»

*

They were in bed, out of breath and sweaty, their limbs intertwined confusedly so they didn’t really know anymore which hands were whose.

And they were just fine with it.

«Ian?»

«Mhm?»

Mickey hesitated. It was so stupid – Pat was stupid. He was stupid.

He bit his lip, trying to hold in the words threatening to come out of his mouth.

«We’re fine, uh?»

Ian raised an eyebrow, and stretched his neck to look at him in the eyes from where his head was resting on Mickey’s chest.

«Yeah, I suppose. What do you mean?»

«You don’t…  _need_  anything, do you?»

«From you?»

«Yeah.»

«Well… If you are offering, I’d like a blowjob»

«Fuck off, asswipe»

«You were asking!»

«I wasn’t talking about  _that_ »

«Then what you were talking about?»

«You know… like  _feelings_  shit»

Ian laughed loudly and Mickey felt the sudden desire to punch himself in the face.

«Mickey Milkovich, is this your attempt at talking about our relationship?»

«Fuck you. Forget it.»

He tried to disengage his body from Ian’s, but the dude surrounded him like an octopus, still laughing softly. «No, no, please! I’ve been waiting for this moment for years!»

«Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me»

Ian ignored him. Of course.

«So what was your doubt?»

«Nothing. I don’t have any doubts. Don’t have anything to say. Just sleep.»

«Please, Mick. I’m serious. What were you thinking?»

Mickey sighed.

«Are you happy?»

Ian snuggled closer to him, if it was even possible, and brushed his nose behind his ear, pecking him lightly on the neck.

«Ecstatic»

«Good»

«That’s all?»

«Just wanted to make sure you’re getting anything you need»

«I’ve got you, haven’t I?»

«Yeah»

«That’s all I need»

«So it’s okay If we don’t… you know,  _talk_  about fucking feelings and spread blankets under the stars and all this shit?»

The silence was intense now, and heavy. Mickey could feel his heart beating loud and fast, making a fucking mess in his veins, all that blood running way to quickly to his head he felt like he was going to throw up any minute.

«I know you love me, Mick» Ian said quietly «I don’t need you to say anything. I know it like you know I love you. We are different from other couples – but in a  _good_ way, I think. We know each other, we get each other. We just understand it better than anyone, you know? Words are nice and all, but we speak with facts, and gestures, and bodies. We’ve seen the worst of each other and we’re still here, I think that’s what makes us endgame. I’m fine with it. More than fine.»

He raised his head slowly to kiss him, smooth and caring. While their tongues were dancing, their hands searching frantically for each other, Mickey thought steps were fucking overrated, after all.


End file.
